Curling: Scots find it tough in opening Euro matches

There were mixed fortunes for Scotland’s teams in yesterday’s play at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships, being staged in Esbjerg, Denmark, writes Mike Haggerty.

Eve Muirhead’s women had a comfortable 8-1 six-end win over Finland in the morning session to give them a second victory in their round-robin programme, but, in the evening session, they lost a tight game by 6-7 to table-toppers Russia.

Earlier, Muirhead had lost her opener against hosts Denmark but recovered with an 11-3 win over Sweden on Saturday.

In their only game yesterday, a poor start by Kyle Smith’s Scottish men saw them down 1-5 after just three ends to Sweden’s defending European and world champions, and the Scottish men went on to lose 6-9.

In their previous games in the competition, they were beaten 4-11 by Norway but had a 9-7 win over the Czech Republic on Saturday evening.